The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, by Michel de Montaigne

Chapter 13

The Ceremony of the Interview of Princes

There is no subject so frivolous that does not merit a place in this rhapsody. According to our
common rule of civility, it would be a notable affront to an equal, and much more to a superior, to fail being at home
when he has given you notice he will come to visit you. Nay, Queen Margaret of Navarre 1 further adds, that it would be a rudeness in a gentleman to go out, as we
so often do, to meet any that is coming to see him, let him be of what high condition soever; and that it is more
respectful and more civil to stay at home to receive him, if only upon the account of missing him by the way, and that
it is enough to receive him at the door, and to wait upon him. For my part, who as much as I can endeavour to reduce
the ceremonies of my house, I very often forget both the one and the other of these vain offices. If, peradventure,
some one may take offence at this, I can’t help it; it is much better to offend him once than myself every day, for it
would be a perpetual slavery. To what end do we avoid the servile attendance of courts, if we bring the same trouble
home to our own private houses? It is also a common rule in all assemblies, that those of less quality are to be first
upon the place, by reason that it is more due to the better sort to make others wait and expect them.

Nevertheless, at the interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis at Marseilles, 2 the King, after he had taken order for the necessary preparations for his
reception and entertainment, withdrew out of the town, and gave the Pope two or three days’ respite for his entry, and
to repose and refresh himself, before he came to him. And in like manner, at the assignation of the Pope and the
Emperor, 3 at Bologna, the Emperor gave the Pope
opportunity to come thither first, and came himself after; for which the reason given was this, that at all the
interviews of such princes, the greater ought to be first at the appointed place, especially before the other in whose
territories the interview is appointed to be, intimating thereby a kind of deference to the other, it appearing proper
for the less to seek out and to apply themselves to the greater, and not the greater to them.

Not every country only, but every city and every society has its particular forms of civility. There was care enough
to this taken in my education, and I have lived in good company enough to know the formalities of our own nation, and
am able to give lessons in it. I love to follow them, but not to be so servilely tied to their observation that my
whole life should be enslaved to ceremonies, of which there are some so troublesome that, provided a man omits them out
of discretion, and not for want of breeding, it will be every whit as handsome. I have seen some people rude, by being
overcivil and troublesome in their courtesy.

Still, these excesses excepted, the knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is, like
grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the very
beginning of acquaintance; and, consequently, that which first opens the door and intromits us to instruct ourselves by
the example of others, and to give examples ourselves, if we have any worth taking notice of and communicating.